The advice to pick one the league's powerhouses if possible, or the Bengals if not worked out well in Week 9. That is, unless you went with the Bills. They lost as double-digit favorites to the Jets, taking out another 11% of the survivor pool field.
Outside of that, it was a relatively smooth week. Things get tougher now though, with most entries having already used the handful of teams that can be readily trusted.
If you're still around, it's a good time to start formulating a plan for how you'll survive down the stretch. It will be difficult deciding which teams to keep on reserve.
We can help, with our rest-of-season expectations using projected win probability for the whole season from our Director of Predictive Analytics, Sean Koerner. These will update each week throughout the year, so we'll always have up-to-date information.
We'll continue to utilize pick data to identify chalky teams. While it's less important than it was early in the season, maximizing EV in massive pools still requires going against the grain.
Let's dig into the Week 10 Picks.
Eagles or Chiefs
As mentioned Last week, things were a lot easier if you had two of Kansas City, Buffalo, and Philadelphia still available. The main reason was because Week 10 sets up similarly, with the Eagles and Chiefs the only teams favored by more than a touchdown.
Unfortunately, that could've led to utilizing the Bills last week, but chances are you avoided that minefield if you're still reading this column. If you only have one of Kansas City or Philadelphia left — use them.
If you somehow have both, and didn't play Buffalo last week, I'd lean towards Kansas City. They're effectively even in terms of future value, with a similar number of high leverage weeks.
However, Philadelphia is playing on Monday Night Football. While the odds are somewhat slim, we don't want to be torpedoed by late breaking news. A Jalen Hurts injury on Sunday (for example) would drastically lower their odds of winning.
On the flip side, if something happened to a key member of the Chiefs, you could always pivot to the later-playing Eagles. This was a more important consideration during the height of COVID, but still worth thinking about now.
New York Giants
If Kansas City and Philadelphia aren't options for you, this week's consolation prize is the Giants. We've looked ahead at this spot a few times throughout the year for New York.
They're hosting the Texans, arguably the worst team in the NFL. This is by far the best spot New York will have the rest of the season, so the opportunity cost is effectively zero.
Given the lack of other reasonable spots for the Giants, I could even see a case for playing them ahead of the Eagles or Chiefs. Especially in larger field pools, where you'll likely need to go all 18 weeks.
However, it's still a fairly considerable drop in spread/win probability. If you're playing in a contest with just a few entrants left, maximizing the chances of winning this week is more important than long term planning.
The Data
Below is the full data for each week of the NFL season. The implied probability as of Week 10 is listed for each team, as well as their "future value" in survivor contests.
The future value is the percentile ranking of each team's combined win probability the rest of the way, and doesn't factor in which weeks are strong. It should be used as a rough guideline for which teams to save down the stretch.
For a sheet that covers the entire season, click here.
